After making sure that Mako was alright and was just knocked out due to exhaustion, Nathan quickly rushed towards Erin who was already checking on Angela.

However, when he reached them, he was left in shock at what he was seeing.

There was a pool of blood beneath Angela’s body with a blade that was stabbed into her back.

Erin quickly removed the blade and used her ice to seal the wound and to cool down the area around it so that her blood flow slowed down and she lost less blood.

There was no sign of Bill or Victor, so they needed Angela to regain consciousness quickly so that they could know what had happened and where they were.

Suddenly, the two of them heard footsteps coming from behind them and before they could even fully turn around as they weren’t expecting a surprise attack, Leon appeared in front of them at very high speeds.

Leon’s entire body was covered in blood and scratches from the heavy beating he had taken from the ape beast that had smacked him around and thrown him into a pile of boxes, and although he was very hurt, his hardening allowed him to remain conscious and not flat out die.

Leon quickly reached into his storage device and took out two high-tier healing pills that they had been saving for emergencies on the mission and fed them to Angela.

Angela’s skin tone instantly became better after the healing pills took effect, but still, she looked far from healthy as her veins were unnaturally dark and could be seen clearly through her skin. She seemingly also lost some weight as well and her bones were now more outlined and exposed all over her body.

The group was worried about Leon as well as he was also not in a stable condition by any means, but Leon was extremely focused as there was still one more enemy left that they had to take care of before they could rest.

“We need to wake her up,” Leon said as he pulled out some water.

Erin used to wash Angela’s face multiple times until finally she began twitching which showed that he was about to wake up.

Angela was still extremely weak as she could barely open her eyes which led Nathan to suspect that she wasn’t stabbed by any ordinary dagger and that maybe she might have been poisoned.

“Nugghh,” Angela groaned in a low voice as she finally opened her eyes to see Nathan, Erin, and Leon staring at her.

“Angela, what happened?! Where’s Victor!? Where’s Bill!?” Nathan asked Angela.

Angela could barely keep her eyes open much less talk, but Nathan continued to ask again and again with Erin shaking her up to keep her awake.

Finally, Angela was able to summon enough strength to raise her arm as she pointed toward the entrance from where Bill and Erin had previously shown up.

“He went… He… went… after… him… h…hel… help him!” Angela stated before collapsing.

Nathan and Erin looked at each other with urgency as they knew they had to move fast. Erin knew that Bill wasn’t the most stable right now and they had to help him or he might end up dying.

“GO!” Leon suddenly shouted as pushed Erin away from Angela. “Go and help him, I will call for an emergency extraction and watch after her in the meantime.”

“What! Are you really going to call them? They will know that if we disobey orders, there will be dire consequences,” Nathan said still unsure if it was a good idea to inform Commander Sable.

“We are bound to get in trouble no matter what now. We were following the lead of our leader and now it’s our job to finish the job. Stop worrying about the future and make sure that bastard does get himself killed!” Leon shouted in the most serious expression that Erin had ever seen.

With that they both quickly nodded and dashed into the dark entrance to chase after Bill and Victor, praying that they weren’t too late.

****************

Leon took out the virtual communication device and quickly established the connection with the military HQ.

“Don’t worry, young ones, The back upon team is almost ready and we will arrive there in 4 hours so stay put… LEON! WHAT THE HELL HAPPENED!?” Commander Sable exclaimed as he turned from whatever he was doing to the hologram of Leon who looked critically injured with blood all over his body and clothes with his face extremely swollen and injured.

“Commander, we successfully infiltrated the enemy base which was located on the north side of the village in a secret underground passageway. There have been a few complications, but we have defeated all of the members inside the base with the exclusion of Victor Voss who is currently being pursued by three members of our group.” Leon explained in a professional manner.

“DAMN IT, LEON! I TOLD YOU GUYS TO STAND DOWN! WHAT PART OF THAT ORDER DID YOU NOT UNDERSTAND!?” Commander Sable shouted at the holographic display with anger as he was furious about his disciples disobeying him.

However, Leon remained as calm as possible as he knew he himself wouldn’t last long and he had to report as much possible.

“Following the command of our Leader, I and Nathan along with Officer Angela infiltrated the base together. We were able to successfully defeat their forces and our members who were captured had broken free from their entrapment during our fight and joined us in the final battle.” Leon continued.

“WHAT! Angela was in on this! How could she!?” Commander Sable was shocked to find out that even the officer whom he trusted to watch over his new disciples had disobeyed him.

The commander was about to say something more when Leon quickly cut him off while breathing heavily, “Commander please listen! There have been no casualties on our side yet with our leader Mako Grey simply being knocked unconscious due to exhaustion and me also going to follow suit soon enough. Iris’ status is unknown, but Officer Angela’s condition is worsening.”

Leon moved the device further back so it could capture Angela’s figure as well who was lying on the ground struggling to breathe.

“While were finishing off our battles against Victor Voss’s elite guards, Victor stabbed her with a special dagger that had left her in this state. I have already administered two high-tier healing pills which have seemed to slow down the effects on her body but she is still getting worse. I am requesting immediate emergency extraction and medical personnel so that her life can be saved,” Leon said.

Commander Sable was left speechless after so much was just dumped onto him all of a sudden. He was preparing a couple of low-ranked officers to join his backup team which he would send to raid the hideout, as the last thing he was expecting was for Mako to disobey his orders and lead his team to such grave danger.

Before the commander could say anything, Leon’s holographic figure began to wobble as his vision was becoming blurry by the second.

“Please… Hurry commander…” Leon said before collapsing onto the ground right next to Angela.

“LEON!” The commander shouted with worry as he witnessed his disciple fall right before his eyes.

“Prep the emergency jet for take off now, inform the medical personnel. Tell them to be ready in five minutes!” Commander Sable shouted at the privates who were standing beside him.

The privates quickly began to move to execute the commander’s plan hoping to not delay a single second that concurred the wrath of the commander onto them.

********************

Mako’s eyes slowly opened back up as he found himself laying in the exact position that he was when he fell to the ground after the effect of exhaustion had kicked in from him deactivated Rage Mode.

Mako turned his head around but found that there was nobody around and the whole was silent which made him quite confused.

*DING!*

Deactivating Rage Mode

The remaining Rage mode bar will be compensated to the user by the system

A Difficult Level 5 Opponent Has Been Defeated

50000 EXP

The User is Exhausted

A number of prompts filled Mako’s point of view with many more notifications that were still waiting to be opened and read; however, Mako quickly closed the interface and slowly picked himself off the ground.

His entire body was aching and he was still heavily exhausted, but he knew that if he wasn’t in a hospital bed when he woke, it meant that the fight wasn’t over and that his friends still might need him, even though he was practically useless.

Mako looked around and saw the destruction that had taken place all over this giant room with the cracks and craters that littered the whole place as well as the remains of the guard that he had killed.

Mako had no remorse for him as during the final moments, Mako had actually made the decision himself to kill the guard as his Rage Mode was already deactivating at that point and he was regaining his consciousness.

After looking around a bit more, Mako’s weak and blurry eyes finally landed on two people who were lying on the ground next to the entrance from where Victor and his men had shown up.

After focusing a bit on their bodies, Mako realized that the bodies were of Angela and Leon.

Seeing their superior officer and friend lying on the floor like that with blood all around them, Mako began to panic as he tried to run towards them as fast as he could with what little energy his legs possessed. 𝒍𝒊𝒃𝒓𝙚𝙖𝙙.𝓬𝙤𝙢

“Leon! Angela! I am coming!” He shouted as he made his way towards his dying teammates.